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Da Vinci’s Hands

European Inventor of the Year 2008 in the category "Non-European countries"

It's a rare individual who makes two
lasting and commercially viable contributions to a single field - rarer still
that such a person can make the claim to have bettered the lives of millions in
the process. Biomedical engineer Philip S. Green of SRI International, the
non-profit research institute formerly known as the Stanford Research Institute
of Stanford University, is one such man.

Beginning
in the late 1960s, Green spearheaded more than two dozen inventions that made
ultrasound a usable medical diagnostic tool. In the 1980s he began development of
what is now becoming the world's most-used and most-trusted system for
minimally invasive surgery.

Green
integrated advances in miniature cameras, stereo imaging displays, robotics and
remote control systems to create a prototype that gave surgeons the visual and
tactile sensations of being inside the patient - even though the surgery would
be performed by robot arms through tiny holes.

Seeing
it as way of allowing surgeons at remote hospitals to treat casualties before
they bled to death on the field of battle, the US Army authorised significant
funding for what was by then known as the Green Telepresence System. The team
began their clinical testing in Belgium
and quickly proved that Green's telepresence system gave surgeons not only
superior control over their instruments, but a unique view inside the body
through a magnified three-dimensional video image of the operating field.

Initially
dubbed Mona (after da Vinci's Mona Lisa), the system was re-christened the da
Vinci Surgical Robot in 1999 in honour of the man who had invented the first
robot. In 2000 it became the first robotic surgical system to be cleared by the
US Food and Drug Administration for general laparoscopic surgery, and has
subsequently been authorised for use in cardiac, chest, urological and
gynaecological procedures.

Watch the film

How
it works

The
da Vinci robotic surgery system allows surgeons to perform complex procedures
such as cardiac surgery through incisions as small as 1-2 centimetres. It deploys
four robot arms, each of which carries a microtool: one for manipulating, one
for cutting, another for cauterising and a fourth for suturing. A movable cart
next to the operating table holds the arms, while the surgeon sits at a
sophisticated, ergonomically designed control console with a magnified
three-dimensional view of the operating field.

The
da Vinci's processors and software turn the surgeon's hand movements into
extremely precise gestures of the microtools, each of which carries a
stabilised camera to ensure the surgeon has a perfect and unwavering view of
what is happening inside the patient's body. Each of the microtools carries its
own microprocessor chip to help translate the system's interpretation of the
surgeon's highly precise commands into cuts and sutures that are more steady
and accurate than any human hand could make using a standard scalpel and
magnified vision. The system also deploys patented motion-scaling and
tremor-reduction systems.